Three Months
by skitzofrenic
Summary: It's been 3 months since he had left, and I've never felt so dead.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N -** k, so for the past couple of weeks, i've been cheating on the usual Danny Phantom fanfiction that i so totally love and i was OBSESSED with reading _Twilight_, and i've had this idea brewing in my head for the longest time, and it's preventing any further progress on New Beginnings, so i'm putting it all down on fanfiction and getting it over with. I'm hoping that once i get this done, i can go back to NB and finish the extra special long chapter that some of you are waiting for. i only have a few more days 'til i leave to Nicaragua, and i won't be back 'til the 13th of August. so hopefully this gets out of my head and i can go back to typing and proofreading the next chapter (ch20, i think?) of NB. so yeah, here it is.  
be warned, it's not the usual stuff i come out with. albeit, it's not as creepy as most fanfictions that are like this, but it's something i've never even dreamed about writing, until this idea came to me of course.

This is set in New Moon, after Edward left in those empty pages that say the names of the months on them. December, I guess. :)

**Disclaimer** - this thing is pointless. whythehell would i write _fan_fiction if i were to OWN the fiction in the first place?

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92 days.

13 weeks.

3 months.

It had been 3 months since he had left, and I've never felt so dead.

300 _years_, felt more accurate.

It was torture, more than torture when I saw him walk out that fateful day a million years ago. And I didn't know how much more of this isolation i could take.

The knife was cool in my hand, the cold stainless steel of the tip on my wrist, making the other scars, both healing and healed, more pronounced. More noticeable. And as I prayed for the courage to press down and drag the blade across my skin, I did something I hadn't done in the longest time: I had smiled.

The small voice in my head told me to put the knife down, to just walk away and forget what I was doing. But most unfortunately, the little voice sounded _way _too much like Edward, and that set me over the edge. The voice told me to stop, to pretend nothing had ever happened, to keep on living my life and to grow an old, ripe age.

The only problem was that Edward _was_ my life. And without him, I felt empty, and my purpose to live--

Well that's the thing. I had no purpose anymore.

For 3 months I had walked around like a zombie, not noticing the minutes turn to hours, the hours to days, the days to weeks...

And now, after all this time, I refused to put up with this empty feeling. I refused to feel so broken, so rejected.

I refused to feel so alone.

I know what I was doing to Charlie and Renee and Phil, but at the moment, I couldn't find the heart in me to care. Right now, the only thing that mattered, was me, the eight-inch kitchen knife in my hand, and the tip of it pressing down hard, but not enough to break skin. Not enough at the moment, anyways.

I closed my eyes, let out the remainder of my breath, and pushed the knife down as hard as I could, and once the smell of my blood tickled my nose and ran dangerously down my arm, I knew it was deep enough.

The knife clattered down onto the floor, and my knees followed it down as they buckled underneath me. I laughed silently to myself, wondering when I had finally cracked, when my sanity just left with him, leaving me here.

And as my vision faded, I saw the most beautiful reddish-brown hair, and heard a cry that was so familiar it hurt.

My smile grew more pronounced, and everything finally faded to black.

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**A/N** - :cough: not as good as i thought it would turn out, in my opinion, but it's the best you're gunna get when it comes to stuff like this. review? (with SOME kind of advice, if you don't mind :)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** - i wasn't finished with it. i thought of keeping it a oneshot, but it was bothering me, so no. it is now a two shot, and hopefully this'll stay that way. it probably won't, but it's not going to become a full-fledged, million chapter story. there's not enough stuff going on to write about that. well, i guess that's it for now. :)

**Disclaimer** - i'm Stephenie Meyer and i own the Twilight series. sue me, i fucking dare you.

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I wasn't sure what was happening. I had been coming in and out of consciousness for the longest time, and I didn't pick up on everything that was happening. But there was commotion. A lot of it. And I don't know how long it lasted, because by the time I regained some kind of consciousness for the last time, I was almost positive that my attempted suicide had worked; that I was dead.

When I opened my eyes, my positivity had started to wear down. Whatever was in front of me was ridiculously bright, and even though my vision was still very fuzzy, I knew that someone had interfered, and that someone had came to the house, swept me away on a stretcher and brought me to the hospital. I don't know how long ago this was, like I said, I had been passing out, but I was here. And I was safe.

Maybe I _was_ dead, maybe I was dreaming, seeing the alternative path of my choice from some kind of Limbo. But then the ceiling of the hospital room became more clear, the light overhead was shining brightly into my eyes, the smell of rubbing alcohol and bleach was everywhere, and the consistent beeping of the machines that were probably ten feet away sounded like they were right next to my ear.

_Beep, beep, beep_. A steady heartbeat. _My_ steady heartbeat. I had survived. And there'd be hell to pay.

I heard a small sniff and a shuffle from somewhere to my right, and when I looked, the beeping changed it's pattern and became eccentric. There was a boy there with reddish-brown hair, his head resting on my hand as he held on to it tightly.

He looked up as soon as he noticed the heart monitor change it's beeping, straight into my eyes. His were dark as night.

The beeping stopped all together.

"Bella..." he said, his eyes darkening with concern and...regret? "Bella, breathe."

I took a deep breath in, and tried to pull my eyes away from his beautiful, magnetic eyes, but to no avail. He had his locked onto mine.

"She's awake, Carlisle!" he shouted, and the door to the room opened not even two seconds after he had sent out a distress signal.

His eyes finally pulled away from mine to look at the doctor, and they started talking, too fast for me to understand. Then again, not too much was comprehensible at the moment.

I closed my eyes and moaned. My head was hurting, and my arm felt like it was going to fall off. There was a needle injected a couple of centimeters away from the minor scars I had from the weeks that Edward wasn't around, and almost right above the large slice I had given myself the last time I was aware of my surroundings.

"Bella, open your eyes," the doctor instructed quietly. "You need to open your eyes."

I felt his hand approaching my face, and I shied away from it while I moaned.

"Bella, please," the angelic voice pleaded. "Open your eyes again."

I complied with his request. After hearing that voice, the voice that my memory did no justice of remembering, the voice of the person I had wanted to spend eternity with, there was no denying any request he made.

But then I remembered that this person was behind the whole reason of my attempted at suicide, the reason that I had survived and was now going through a living, breathing hell that wasn't likely to disappear for a while, and the reason I was so miserable in the first place. I immediately put my guard up and was more reluctant with the things they asked me.

I looked over at him again and soaked in the details; his hair, his reddish-brown hair that I so desperately wanted to touch, was tousled in distress, and he was constantly running his hand through it with ease. His pale face was pronounced with worry, and the light lavender color around his eyes had turned darker, making his complexion so much more white. His eyes were blacker than black, but they were wide and cautious, and I knew that if he could cry, there'd probably be tears staining his cheeks right now.

My jaw dropped as my heartbeat jumped around again, and I had the same feeling as when I first touched his face in his meadow. It was like experiencing the magic over and over again. And when he looked up at me when the beeping freaked out and noticed how I was staring at him, a small and polite (but still extremely aggravating) version of his crooked smile of his just made me want to punch him in the face for being so damn cocky.

I had missed him so much, though. So much, it's landed me in a hospital and possibly therapy for the next 20 years. But he said he didn't want me. He said he didn't want me, and I believed him. How could he want me, I'm insignificant to him, completely and utterly worthless. He's some kind of God, and I'm...

I'm just another girl who tried to kill herself.

I closed my eyes again, this time because they started to water, and I was trying to prevent the tears from spilling over. I took deep breaths and counted to ten in my head, like I had learned to do two days after he'd left, and I was back in a zombie-like state.

But when Edward was in the room, there was no bringing on a zombie-like state. The second I had zoned out, Edwards musical voice brought me back and a whole new wave of tears threatened to fall, and fall they did.

I couldn't do anything to stop them, and it embarrassed me. Not only did Edward have to be the one to find me bleeding on the kitchen floor, but he was also the one who had caught me staring at him open-mouthed seconds ago, and probably the one that alerted Chief Swan about his daughter's latest attempt at trying to kill herself. Which meant that the whole police station knew, which basically means that every single person in Forks is sitting in their living rooms or in their kitchens talking about the enigmatic Isabella Swan.

Enigmatic, my ass.

I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the tears. They weren't going to stop any sooner if I made myself feel worse than I already did, so I gave up. They'd have to stop eventually, and if they didn't, well I'm no vampire. I have to sleep.

Edward was whispering reassuring comments in my ear, but they were doing anything but reassuring me. He seemed scared to touch me though, like if he was going to snap me in half or go crazy with bloodlust if he did touch me. Though considering how long I guessed it's been since he had gone hunting he probably would go crazy. His eyes had never looked so black, and I knew he was holding back much more than he should.

Slowly I lifted my hand to touch his face with the arm that hadn't felt numb. His eyes met my hand, then closed as he welcomed the warmth that I carried. As my heart rate went crazy again, his eyes flashed open for a second looking at me hungrily, but he regained control and shook the demon inside of him away from the edge.

I had no idea what Carlisle was doing. He was looking at papers and reading charts, mumbling to himself as he went along, but the whole time I was basically oblivious to the fact that he was in the room. Edward had kept me distracted, and when he didn't, I'd slip into my zombie-like state again. Carlisle would ask an occasional question every now and then, and Edward would look up, and I'd look at him, and my heart rate increased. When it did, he looked down at me, told me to breathe, and once everything was fine, we moved back into our original positions, his head on my hand, holding on tightly, and me on the bed, only this time I was staring straight up, and I was clutching his hand for dear life.

I never expected to be laying here with him. Of course, I thought I'd be dead by now, but I didn't think he was going to come and try to stop me. I never saw it coming, but it'd be a lie to even think that him finding me wasn't what I wanted.

I didn't feel guilty about it. The first time we were caught in this position, maybe, but now I really don't care. Before, the situation was different, he had a reason to feel horrible, he had a reason to cringe when he saw me with too many bones broken and covered in bruises. The first time, he cared.

Now, I was completely puzzled. This was the same guy who told me he didn't want me. The same guy who said he was leaving, and when he did he left me broken on the forest floor. And if all of this was true (which I couldn't bring myself to deny), why was he here, looking hopeless and sad and watching every move that I made?

He was responsive to everything I did, to every moan and mumble that I had let slip past my lips. When my hand shifted in his grip, he'd let go for less than a second before I was searching for his hand again. When I sighed, he looked up and didn't look away until he was sure everything was fine. And when I moaned or winced, he cringed and looked anywhere but at my eyes.

And when I had touched his face before, he had responded so curiously, like he first did in the meadow. He had leaned his head into my hand, and his lips had parted, letting out a cold gust of air that was so familiar to me and still so damn intoxicating. When I had moved my hand to stroke his cheek, though, his head turned down and he inhaled deeply; he had been smelling my wrists, instinctively responding to the fast pulse that I had seen there.

So, knowing how his reactions acted whenever I did something, I tried something else, something I knew would probably make his head snap up in shock, or fear or something. And I wasn't sure how I was going to take it.

"Edward..." I said, for the first time in forever, my voice shaking with grief.

His head, just as predicted had snapped up, but his face didn't show any of the emotions I had expected. No, instead, it had shown something I wasn't ready for.

It had shown love. And a lot of it.

My eyes started to water again, but this time it was a lot less controlled, and I started to choke on my tears. My whole body started to shake, and a sharp pain in my wrist let me know that the needle was moving and that the cut underneath it was in danger of reopening. I didn't know what to think anymore.

Edward never let go of my hand, but used his other one to cup my cheek. His face was screwed up with tears that would never come, and he let out a gasp now and then. I took my hand out of his grip and lifted both of my arms to pull them tightly around him, sitting up in the bed to make it easier.

He smelled even better than I had remembered, and his stony skin was smoother than ever. And this brought a whole new wave of tears when I realized how my stupid human memory was so utterly horrible compared to his enhanced vampiric one. It wasn't fair how completely different we were, how completely horrible it must look for the both of us to walk down a crowded street; him, looking like a heavenly spirit, next to me, a plain ordinary nobody. And it made me feel stupid for sitting on this bed hugging him for God knows how long, knowing my heart rate was increasing to a dangerously high level and that the needle in my arm was starting to move in the wrong way.

And a blood stain on his shirt let me know that the cut had reopened.

Carlisle shouted Edward's name urgently several times, and when neither Edward nor me didn't respond, he pressed a button next to my bed, pulled him off of me and some nurse walked in and pulled my arm back down so it was next to me again. She pulled out a needle from her front pocket, and quickly jammed it into the tube that was connecting the needle in my arm to the pouch above me. I had been sedated.

Carlisle released Edward who was at my side a little too fast for human speed, but he grabbed my hand again, and didn't let go.

My vision started to blur, everything around me was fading, and when I tried to look back at Edward, he was gone and everything was black once again.

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**A/N** - dammit, i just didn't know how to end it at this chapter . maybe i'll continue it. not too many chapters, i mean i know i have to add _at least_ one more, and i already have that planned out, just gotta proofread and upload it onto fanfiction :) i think i'm going to make it a multi chapter story if i'm in the mood for it lol :D review please


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** - chapter 3...yeah...idk what to say about this one, except for the fact that it is now February, about the time when Bella started talking to Jacob. Idk if that's going to be a serious thing in this story. I might include it, but I might not. It depends on which way I decide to go. Jacob might come in, if not in this chapter, maybe in a later one :)

**Disclaimer** - fuck you.

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_2 months later_

School had become absolutely unbearable. I had enough to deal with at home with Charlie acting up; he had taken it upon himself to indulge himself in almost every kind of alcohol he could get his hands on whenever the nurse wasn't around, not to mention he was thinking of sending me to a mental hospital. And every time we spoke, he'd never look me in the eye.

I had enough going on.

But forcing me to live through 8 hours of this bullshit at school was just cruel and unusual punishment. It had been a while since my...er, "incident" if you will, and yet most of my teachers still talked to me like I was 4 years old, and the whole student body was boring holes with their staring. If I hadn't known any better, I'd say there were scorch marks on my back.

Not only did _I_ know they were staring, _they _knew I was staring. And the second I'd turn around to tell them to back off, they'd turn back around and pretend nothing happened, concentrating on whatever was in front of them.

Almost four-hundred people were talking about me behind their hands, silencing themselves when they'd see me walk up the hallways.

Well, all but two, anyways. This pair of students didn't seem to have any interest at all. But I knew better. I'd just have to give it time, be patient.

My patience was wearing thin, though, especially when I actually heard what they were saying about me.

"Look, it's Isabella Swan, Cullen's girl, or at least she used to be anyways."

"Yeah, I heard she slit her wrists so deep that she could've died."

"Well, that was the point, wasn't it? She's just lucky Dr. Cullen came back just as she was found."

"I don't understand why she would do something like that over a stupid boy. She should just move on and get over it. I mean a guy like Edward Cullen could do so much better than _her_, anyways, and she should've known that."

Oh, yeah, I knew what they were saying. Each and every one of them had something different to add on to the list of atrocities (the things that I, too, believed to be true, but getting them thrown in my face didn't make anything better), and each and every one of them made the gaping hole in my chest so much wider. So wide, I didn't even know how I held myself together.

I'm like…Karma's play thing.

I was walking to Calculus, my least favorite subject; though it was the class I looked forward to the whole day. I knew Mr. Varner didn't like me, he didn't like anyone much, but it was this fact that made me so much more eager to go to his class. He treated me like a human being, like an equal. Not like some alien from a different planet.

As usual, when I walked in, the eerie silence set over the class, almost all eyes on me as I walked clumsily to my seat. Every pair of green, blue, brown, and hazel eyes were on me. And the not as familiar (but still just as distinguishable) onyx was staring down at his hands.

Only when I tripped over my feet and almost hit my head against a desk did Edward look up from the secluded corner of Mr. Varner's classroom. I felt his gaze more than all of the others, and when I looked up to meet his eyes, he had looked away too fast for human speed, staring straight ahead. His eyes weren't the same. They were just as black as they were two months ago in the hospital, if not darker, and I wondered when the last time he went hunting was. His eyes scared me; not because they were black, I was used to that, but because they were dull…or dead-looking.

I straightened myself out, and sat in my seat, putting my hands on my face and adding pressure on my eyes until I saw stars after adjusting the three large wristbands I had used to cover up the old scars. As much as I wanted to hide them, people still stared at my wrists. They were like magnets to these people. I just wanted to get into all of their faces and scream "Get over it!", but unfortunately, that only works on TV.

As I waited for Mr. Varner to begin his lesson, I drifted away from my current surroundings. All I wanted to do was sleep. I hadn't slept well in ages. Every night, I'd wake up in the middle of the night sweating and hyperventilating for reasons or dreams I wasn't able to remember, and after moments like that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. So I'd started to fall asleep in almost all of my classes. All my other teachers allowed it of course, but Mr. Varner wouldn't tolerate such laziness. "This isn't Woodstock," he would say, and that would always crack a smile between a few smart students (or at least the ones that weren't completely retarded), especially the bronze-haired boy in the back.

After all, he probably went to Woodstock, regardless of his hatred towards the 60's music, and could probably explain it in more detail than anyone in the entire school.

"Miss Swan, for the millionth time, I'd appreciate it if you did not take a nap in my classroom," Mr. Varner said warningly, snapping me out of my trance. "Don't make me drop your grade over something so silly, you're hanging on a thread as it is."

I scowled at my teacher while I felt the blood rush to my face, taking a quick peek through the corner of my eye at Edward's reaction. His eyes fluttered a bit, and I could see him swallowing the venom that gushed into his mouth.

I smiled triumphantly. _Not long now._

Mr. Varner started his lesson with the limit definition of a derivative. I lost him after he started to draw fancy pictures and letters on the board, and just zoned out, my eyes staring down at my paper with giant doodles of random things that popped into my mind; Campbell's chicken noodle soup, a couple of tap-dancing rats, and I think an elf in a bikini. At one point I started to draw a lion and a lamb snuggling up together, the lamb shivering in fear and the lion eyeing the lamb hungrily, and after that I had left my pen down on the table for a good five minutes and listened to Mr. Varner drone on about functional notations and indeterminate forms of "0"/0. I had no idea what he was talking about.

The bell finally rang at the end of classes, leaving me free for the rest of the day…or at least free in a sense.

I gathered my books and looked up swiftly like I did every day to watch Edward sweep out of the room, but he wasn't where he was supposed to be. I looked around and saw him in the back, staring in front of him and pressing his fingers into the long bars that connected the desks to the chairs hard enough to leave indents. When he noticed me looking, his eyes flew straight to mine and we were locked in that position. His glare was almost as bad as it was the first day I was here, only this time I knew the exact reason behind it, and it didn't bother me like it did then. Instead of fear on my face, it was grief; I couldn't even look at him with a straight face anymore, it hurt too much.

We stayed there until all of the nosy kids left the classroom, even when Mr. Varner was giving a half-hearted wave of the hand and told us (and everyone else that refused to leave) to get out; he, like everyone else in the room, was waiting for something interesting to happen.

Eventually, his eyes broke apart from mine, his control returned, and he grabbed his books and swept out of the classroom like he would do on any normal day.

I sighed, knowing that I should've expected as much. I mean we were in school, and there were tons of people around. We weren't discussing anything that way.

I grudgingly made my way to the parking lot, searching not for my big red Chevy, but for a small powder-blue Toyota Prius (so small my claustrophobia was starting to make an appearance), and the nurse.

Nurse Jennifer Lannet: the bimbo they assigned to keep watch over me so I didn't do anything stupid again. How this woman got a job as a nurse I will never know, but I swear, this woman couldn't tell a polar bear from a peanut. She was extremely…well, irresponsible was an okay word. Charlie constantly had to remind her of the rules that were placed when I had made it back from the hospital. And with her driving, I was surprised I hadn't died yet. The only time she was a good driver was when she was concentrating really hard. And she had the attention span of a sweaty gym sock.

Of course, knowing that driving home with her would make everyone at the house happy, I obliged. It was better than me swerving off the road and crashing at any sign that reminded me of the Cullen clan anyways.

Nurse Lannet was always somewhere in visual distance of me, save for when I was rotting my brain in school. She'd drive me to school, she'd pick me up. She'd sit in my room while I was doing homework, she'd watch me extra carefully as I prepared dinner for Charlie, which was a lot harder since the rules that had been enforced in my house. Basically, I'm not allowed to handle anything a two-year-old isn't allowed to handle, and there was no chance of the stupid nurse cooking; she cooked almost as well as Charlie did. I was sick of it already.

I scanned the parking lot: there she was, same place as always, all the way in the back of the lot, leaning on the passenger side door and smiling a smile that was way too huge to be real. I grimaced and walked a slow, unhappy trudge towards her.

"Good afternoon, Bella. Did you have a good day at school?"

I met her eyes in irritation. "Nurse Lannet, you ask me this question every day, and every day, my answer is the same. No, I did not have a good day at school. Can we stop with the false attitudes now?"

She simply smiled and climbed into the Prius. I sighed and shook my head before I followed her in. As she began to pull out, a shiny, silver Volvo almost crashed into us.

"Goodness!" Nurse Lannet shouted in the car. She stuck her head out of the window. "I'm sorry, you go ahead."

I could see Edward and Alice perfectly from the passenger seat. Alice looked disappointed and her pixie-like face was twisted into a frown (_her_ eyes were a bright gold). Edward, on the other hand, was completely shocked. His eyes were wide, and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel tightly. He met my eyes for the second time today; he looked like he was trying to tell me something, but before I could figure it out, he grimaced and looked away, driving ridiculously fast off in the direction of the main street leading out of the school boundaries.

"Well, that was a close call, wasn't it, dear?" the nurse said cheerfully to me.

I simply stared out the windshield the whole ride home, waiting patiently for Edward's arrival. And if he didn't come, then I'd have to figure out a way to get to the Cullen's place. He didn't sleep. He had all the time in the world.

Time I so desperately wanted him to share with me.

We pulled up to the curb of the house and walked up the path to the door. I grabbed my key from my pocket, quickly unlocked the door and ran to my room, completely ignoring the nurse's calls.

I slammed the door open and saw…

Nothing. It was empty.

He hadn't come to wait for me. And a whole new wave of rejection washed over me, tears swelling up in my eyes, but I blinked them back. There was no actual confirmation of him being here. I had gotten my own hopes up for no reason.

I counted to ten and made it back to my zombie-like state, feeling a wave of calmness that not even Jasper could've produced for me.

I sulked down the stairs, and saw the nurse still at the door, untying her orthopedic shoes before slipping into more comfortable flats. She asked me if I was hungry and if I wanted her to make a snack.

I ignored her and walked into the kitchen myself, opening the fridge to find something already sliced to make a sandwich.

Knives were usually considered something two-year-olds are forbidden to touch.

After that thought, I wasn't really in the mood for any kind of food, so I shrugged and closed the refrigerator door. That had been happening a lot lately; I was never hungry, and when they forced me to eat, I flat-out refused the food before they'd make me choke it down. But eventually I'd spit it back up. I wasn't forcing it. Nothing would stay down. So I just stopped eating when I didn't want to, and they'd stop pushing me with that kind of thing. It was nothing major, I mean, I was still alive, right? Still kickin' (no matter how completely weak and lame the kick is).

I sat down and read _Wuthering Heights_ for the millionth time, and was almost completely drowned in the words when the doorbell rang.

I looked up to make sure Nurse Lannet was getting the door before I dived back into my book, but a musical ringing voice caught my attention, a voice I hadn't heard in way too long.

"Hello, you must be Bella's nurse. I'm Edward Cullen, Dr. Cullen's son. Is Bella home?"

I could almost imagine the shocked look on the nurse's face, the complete inability to think properly or to string words together after he dazzled her with a million-dollar smile and a musical voice that put sirens to shame.

"Uh…" the nurse said quietly, "Yes, I'll go get her now. Why don't you sit down on the couch while you wait?"

Edward kindly thanked her for the offer and walked into the living room to wait.

I could almost see her running as quietly as possible to try and tell me the news. So instead of telling her that I knew what was going on, I just pretended that I never heard who had walked in.

"Bella," she said, anticipation clouding the casual tone of her voice, "you have a visitor."

"Who is it?" I asked, trying not to move too fast or to sound too eager.

"Edward Cullen! He's waiting for you in the living room." She hesitated before continuing. "Bella, I have to go out. I seem to have forgotten something back at the hospital. I'll be just a couple of minutes," she said. Then she scowled. "Do you think you can hold yourself together for half an hour while I get back?"

"Sure, Nurse Lannet, I'll be fine." I'll be perfect, wonderful, floating on clouds…

Or scared…nervous out of my mind, actually.

She smiled at me before putting her shoes back on. "Play nice," she shouted once she was out of the door.

I took a deep breath and walked forward into the living room.

There he was, a statue of pure beauty, sitting on my boring couch. He looked so out of place.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, holding my resolve.

He turned around, his eyes full of grief. I almost melted just then, but I quickly got over it. It was time for some answers, whether he wanted to give them to me or not.

"I came to talk to you, if you'd let me." He said politely.

I sat down on the recliner next to the couch and sighed, trying not to let my excitement show, though my heartbeat probably gave me away anyways. "Talk, then."

Edward was fidgeting with his hands at this point, looking up and down, left and right, thinking of the right thing to say while avoiding my gaze, which I was pretty sure he could feel at the moment. He seemed so out of character; the Edward I knew wouldn't have hesitated. I just hoped he was feeling exactly the same way I felt every day at school, only much, much worse. He not only had to endure the verbal comments that he probably heard from miles away, but he also had the whole student body's thoughts in his head, as well.

He finally reached my eyes. I guess he had run out of things to look at.

"Hi, Bella."

Hi, Bella? That's it?

I scowled with my response. "Hi."

"How've you been?" he said nervously.

I'd never seen him act so cautiously, like if every move he made was going to either end world hunger or doom us all.

My scowl immediately turned into an icy glare. "Oh, I've been just fine, Edward," I said sarcastically. "Except for the stares I get at school every day, or the retarded nurse the _therapist_ has following me around, everything's fine. Oh, wait, let's not forget the new things that poor little Bella's not allowed to touch, like any kind of silverware that's not a spoon, for example. I'm not allowed to handle the oven in case I try to burn myself, I'm not allowed to shower alone anymore because they're scared that I might try drowning, and I can't sleep without having Nurse Lannet sitting in the rocking chair to make sure I wake up. My life has been fucking peachy, Edward."

He flinched and looked away from my cold stare. I didn't regret anything.

"Bella, I—," he hesitated out of fear, it looked like. "I'm so sorry, Bella."

He looked back at me with his piercing gaze. I didn't say anything, I just waited for him to continue, my glare softening slightly.

"I should've never left…I thought it would be better for you, having me away. You'd be free from all the dangers that I had put you through every day, free from all the…crap…that you had to go through while you were with me. I was in Honduras when Alice called me and told me what you were thinking of doing. And when she called later on, I was with Carlisle at the airport, and you were in the kitchen, holding a knife in your hand and digging it into your wrist."

I flinched at the memory.

"Bella, I was so scared," he continued. "I thought by distancing myself from you you'd live a longer life, a healthier one. And the next thing I know me and Carlisle are rushing on a red-eye plane to Forks, driving as fast as I could in a stolen minivan, and two blocks away I thought I was too late.

"The smell was almost too much, even from down the street. I don't know how I had made it so far. But the second I saw you, you were collapsing onto your kitchen floor, and you had passed out. You had lost so much blood in so little time, and there was only so much I could do so I wouldn't kill you….

"Carlisle had come from the car to help me out, and even he was having trouble with his control; Carlisle, of all people. He helped clean the wound as much as he could, but you just kept bleeding, and we couldn't do anything while you were still passed out on the floor, so I took you to the hospital.

"We were almost too late. If we had waited a couple of minutes at most, you would've died, and I would've lost you forever. The second we got to the hospital, they put you in the ER and started the transfusions. Two whole days you slept, Bella. I was sitting in the room with you the whole time wondering…wondering why you would do something like that to yourself?"

When he talked, it was blissful oblivion. I couldn't get enough of his voice, and I took in every word he said, flinching and grimacing at all the right times, and almost moaning at the pain I felt in my arm as the _still-healing_ cut throbbed when he mentioned the blood. It wasn't my fault it reopened at its own will.

"Bella," he said, regaining my attention. He slid off the couch and came to sit Indian style right next to my legs. I bent down lower to his face, and my hands wrapped around my stomach. It had started to ache when he began to speak.

"Bella, I am so sorry," he said, his voice cracking. "I'm more than sorry. I'm so sorry that there are no words that I am able to say to fully explain how sorry I am. What I did is inexcusable and I feel absolutely horrible. I'll understand it if you want me to leave. I just wanted you to know what I was thinking back then."

He didn't restate his earlier question, but I knew he was thinking about it as he looked down at the large wristbands on my arm. He reached out to touch them, but I moved away, letting his hand rest on my knee instead.

"It was torture for me, Edward," I said, answering him. "You took everything away from me. I basically walked around like a zombie when you left. I didn't know how to keep going…I didn't know how to live anymore…" I shook my head in disbelief at him. "How could you possibly think that I would keep on living my life 'as if you'd never existed'? I'm not the same person I was when I came to Forks, and I'm never going to be that person again. How could you ask me to go back to my old life when my new life was all I was living for?"

The waterworks started again, and the tears that fell from my eyes were coming down like waterfalls. He got up on his knees and grabbed my hands in his, touching his forehead to them.

I couldn't help it. The moment his head made contact with my hands, I lost my breath, and I knew my heartbeat was speeding up, because seconds later, he looked up and said, "Breathe, Bella."

Usually, I'd just nod and take in a much-needed breath. Usually, when he knocked me breathless like this, I'd be able to regain control of myself fairly easily. But now…I didn't. It was like all of a sudden, I felt a tremendous wave of fear for no reason at all, and my hands started to get numb. My chest hurt, my heart was pounding, and breathing was getting harder and harder with every passing second.

"Bella, you need to breathe," Edward repeated to me, his wide eyes meeting my own.

I was freaking out. Not only could I not breathe, but even if I could I would probably lose my breath again. The way Edward was looking at me right now was…well, breathtaking.

"Edward," I gasped. "Help me."

He ran to the kitchen and back, and called Carlisle in two seconds, but that was all it took for everything to get so much worse.

I started shaking from the lack of oxygen. The world around me was going fuzzy, but nothing had faded yet. I was still in complete control over almost every part of my body. Every part except for my lungs, apparently.

I felt pressure in my lungs, as if they were going to burst. Every inch of me was aching from how hard I'd been shaking, and when Edward scooped me up into his arms, I was almost able to grab on, but my hands were completely white, so white that it scared the shit out of me. I wondered what my face looked like, and what Edward must be feeling right now. The little bit of air that was managing to seep in and out wasn't helping in the slightest, and he knew that. The only thing that was surprising me at the moment (besides my sudden inability to breathe) was that Alice hadn't foreseen this happening. And if she had, why would she hide it from Edward?

I didn't care, though, not too much. I had bigger worries.

Edward was talking too fast on the phone with Carlisle while running. I didn't know what they were talking about; I was just trying to focus on counting to ten before I passed out. Switching to zombie mode would probably make my situation easier to deal with.

One, two, three…

"Carlisle, she's not breathing! I'm bringing her to the house right now, I don't care what's going on right now!"

Four, five, six, seven…

"There's no time for that, Carlisle, bringing her to the hospital is just going to waste time and raise more questions that she doesn't need right now. She's already stressed enough as it is. I'm taking her to the house, I'm almost there."

Eight, nine, ten…

No deal.

The fast moving background and Edward's reassuring comments flew behind me and started to swirl around in my head. Of course, it eventually left me unconscious. I guess Edward had that effect on me; it seemed to happen a lot…

* * *

_Edward POV_

She was beautiful. Even when she was gasping for breath that wouldn't come, she was the most amazing creature that, in my almost 110 years of my life, I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. And the whole time that she was in my arms, her skin tone getting whiter and whiter, I couldn't get my eyes to look away. If it could, my heart would probably break at the damage I'd done to her, if it already hasn't. The pain I was feeling was way too much. I'd never meant for any of this to happen.

She had passed out about half a second before I reached the French doors of the Cullen Mansion. I'd just about dropped to my knees when I realized that she had completely stopped breathing. Her heartbeats were slowing down, as well.

Carlisle met me in the living room, clearing everyone out as he made room for Bella. No one actually left, they just raced up the first set of stairs and watched, Alice being the only one with a calm resolve.

_She's going to be okay, Edward, _she thought at me, a half smile humorlessly appearing on her face.

I nodded, and a wave of calmness washed over me. Jasper had obviously interfered. I didn't want to be calm. I wanted to scream and break every object in the house, but apparently all that tension was starting to build up inside him. I could hear the battle raging on in his head.

My focus went back to Bella. It's only been a second, and her heart rate had decreased severely. Carlisle had gone to his office for some supplies, or something, I didn't pay attention. The only thing I realized was that her face was whiter than mine, and I felt worse than I had that day that I had caught her falling to the floor covered in her own blood.

"Carlisle!" I shouted. I didn't care what he was doing. He needed to be helping Bella, and he wasn't. I knew where he was, I knew that he was getting stuff to help her, but he was taking too long, her heartbeats were getting too far apart.

"CARLISLE!"

He came running down quickly after the second time I had called his name, his hands full with syringes and small pill bottles. He bent down towards her arm and picked out a needle. Before I could ask what it was, though, he injected her and the liquid inside the needle went through her bloodstream, making her smell funny. Her whole body loosened within that second, and her breathing became regular again. All the muscles in her body were loose and floppy, and instead of looking as if she passed out, she looked like she was sleeping.

Carlisle sighed. "I sedated her. She was having a panic attack. It looks like she hasn't been eating properly, and she's lost way too much weight in such a short amount of time. She was already fragile enough, but this weakened her defenses ten-fold."

I shook my head in disbelief; a panic attack. Things were horrible, worse than I could've ever imagined. I didn't want to bring myself to the conclusion that Bella was torturing herself, again, because of me. When all of this was supposed to have ended when I left, it got worse.

"We're all going hunting, Edward," Alice said from the stairs as she descended.

When she reached the couch, she crouched down at Bella's head and kissed her forehead. She turned to glare at me. "You have a lot to make up for," she said icily. "She doesn't deserve all of this. She's had enough life-threatening experiences as it is."

I winced and nodded.

Alice took one more look at Bella, and then they were gone; Bella and I were alone. I was scared; I hadn't hunted in so long…

The demon in me snarled and the venom burned my throat as I swallowed it, pushing the creature that was thirsting for her blood farther back into my mind. It was fairly easy. I couldn't take it if she was in any more danger, so I refused to become a danger. And that made so much more of a difference.

I waited there for a while. I think it had gotten dark, and the phone probably rang a couple of times, but I didn't leave her side. I _refused_ to.

She looked so much worse than I had imagined she would after I'd left. I knew leaving was going to hurt her for a while, but I imagined she was going to move on. I didn't want her to linger on thoughts of me. I wasn't worth that. I didn't deserve what she wanted to give me, not after what happened in September. Not ever.

The love that she had for me was unbelievable. How could she love someone like me? Every moment with me was a dangerous one, and yet when I looked into her eyes there was no telling how much she wanted me there, so much she wanted to risk her mortality for it…and it worried me.

The issue of her becoming a vampire is usually an unspeakable around me, save for when Bella is around. And I would never admit it to anyone, but it would probably be one of the best things that could happen to her. She's so…incredibly breakable and vulnerable. Nothing could be better for her than turning to stone. And that's not even mentioning the possibilities for her in that state…I'd never have to restrain myself. She'd be just as much of a player in this game as I am now. And that's the thought that makes me wonder more than anything else why I was so hesitant in giving her what she wanted. Alice saw it as a sure thing, anyways.

But Alice and I had different views on everything as well. I always believed vampires to be soulless demons forced to walk the earth forever. It's the only explanation for the way we run around killing creatures to drink their blood. How could she want something like that? Damned to an eternity of night, I once put it to her.

Her hand twitched lightly under my own and I quickly looked up. She was still sleeping, only now her face wasn't as white, and some color had returned. She looked stressed, and the weight that she had lost was definitely noticeable. Her face was so much thinner. Her cheekbones and the sockets of her eyes were a lot more pronounced…her bones looked like they was going to break through her skin. She looked so much _more_ breakable than she used to, and a new wave of worry washed over me.

How much longer would it take for all the evidence of my betrayal to her to show itself?

She shuffled and mumbled incomprehensibly in her sleep. At least she was returning to some form of normalcy. I hadn't missed it when she subconsciously checked if my hand was still in hers. Or when her eyes started to flutter at my responsive but gentle squeeze.

"Edward…" she mumbled.

She was sleeping. And dreaming about me, apparently, but the anguished look on her face as she slept suggested that it was nightmares she was having, and I winced, more pronouncedly, at the damage that I had done.

She turned on her side, then to the other side, then again on her back. She was tossing and turning and moaning and I didn't know what to do, even with my two medical degrees. Everything I had learned seemed to just disappear as I watched her thrash in front of me.

She woke up suddenly, sitting up straight and screaming at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her cheeks.

I couldn't help it. The second she stopped screaming, tearless sobs escaped my throat.

God, what had I done?

* * *

**A/N** – yeah, I'm not happy with this chapter. Not. Happy. Obviously, it's not the end, which really bothers me. This was supposed to be the last chapter and now it's not. I seriously think I'm turning this into a full-fledged story. Maybe another couple of chapters or so. And I don't think I did a very good job with Edward. He over analyzes EVERYTHING, and I don't know if I got enough of that in the story :frowns: so please, bear with me until this is over :)

and btw, Bella curses more because she's stressed. i figured what the hell, she deserves a break. lawl.

-skitzofrenic


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N** – I didn't start writing this chapter out before I got it on Word, so I just went with the flow. Idk if it's any good or not, that's up to you to decide, but I think I did an okay job mhm :)

**Disclaimengioewane

* * *

**

_Bella P.O.V._

My throat scratched from the loud scream. I hadn't woken up screaming in a while, that was only when I started dreaming, or rather when I started having nightmares. And I didn't have nightmares because of Nurse Lannet making sure I took the sleeping pills I was required to take before I went to bed. When I dreamed, if I dreamed, I dreamed about Edward. And since he left, the only thing I've been dreaming about is…nothing. It was just me, and nothing, and it scared me.

At least one good thing came about in this whole mess, anyways: no nightmares.

When I heard Edward sobbing next to me, it only made the situation I was in worse. It was then when I realized where I was and what had happened when he came to my house earlier.

He took me to the Cullen Mansion, probably to Carlisle. Lucky me; I don't think I'd be able to survive another wave of rumors and taunts if I was sent to the hospital. Edward probably knew that, though. He probably can't take anymore of the bullshit either.

How long was I out for, anyways?

There was a phone that never stopped ringing somewhere, and when it stopped it would keep going after about 10 seconds. My breath was still ragged from the volume of the scream, and my throat was still hurting. His hand was in mine, and when I realized, I grabbed it and squeezed as hard as I could. And the second I did he sobbed again. I realized that my attempt to squeeze his hand was weak, like a child's, and I started to wonder when the last time I had eaten something was.

I couldn't remember.

'_Shit.'_

I used my other hand to grab my forehead as my head swooned. I fell back onto the couch, breathing in slowly and deeply and letting my eyes water. I felt drained, like if the tears that were coming out of my eyes were the rest of my life's supply, and I suddenly was trying to use the rest of my energy to muster up some more of them. I didn't want to keep crying; I was sick of it.

Edward either couldn't or wouldn't look at me. I just wish I knew why.

So, of course, I asked. What else could I do?

I sat back up again and pulled his chin up so his eyes would reach mine. "Edward, what happened?" I asked slowly.

He didn't answer right away. Mostly, he was just concerned with the fact that my hand was on his face, and he closed his eyes and breathed in my scent again, like he did back at the hospital. He stopped sobbing, and was breathing at a steady pace that followed mine, closing his eyes in the process.

And I was right about his eyes; he probably hadn't hunted since before he found me. I could see the pain it was causing him to be near me, and guilt flushed my entire being.

He opened his eyes again and looked straight into mine, but looked straight away when my heart jumped and my breath hitched.

"You need to breathe," he said, his voice vibrating with fear as he stroked my hand. "If I'm going to talk you're going to have to be breathing the whole time."

I caught my breath again, surprised at his tone. He was scared something might happen to me again, whatever it was that happened to me in the first place.

"Edward," I said more firmly, "what happened to me?"

He bent his head down to touch his forehead to my hands and his, and was slowly shaking his head from side to side in grief. "You had a panic attack."

My eyebrows went up. A panic attack? How the heck did that happen?

He noticed my distress and kept going before I could ask any more questions. "Carlisle said it's because, added to the stress, you haven't been eating well."

He looked up again, this time more cautiously to make sure I was fine, only his eyebrows were furrowed together in disappointment.

"Why do you keep torturing yourself like this, Bella?" he asked sadly, his own breath hitching as he finished his question. Another sob.

I didn't know how to answer that. It wasn't my fault. I didn't know why I couldn't eat properly anymore. It wasn't something that I had decided for myself, it just happened.

He looked back down at our hands. The phone rang idly in the background.

"Bella," he spoke again, "I've been nothing but a fool, more than a fool, there aren't words to describe how utterly foolish I've been, and I know that for a fact. But you _need_ to stop doing things like this to yourself. First you…" he couldn't finish that sentence as we both cringed. "And now you're starving yourself. God, I don't even want to know what's coming next."

His head hung as he said this. Now I had something to say.

If only I could remember how to use my mouth…

"Why aren't you answering the phone?" Damn, wrong question.

Edward's head came back up, his eyebrows raised in confusion as he looked around the room. "It's been ringing for hours. But what does that have to do with—"

"No," I interrupted before he could question me further, "wrong question."

He just stared at me, eyebrows still furrowed, hair tousled, and his flawless face creased with worry. My heart jumped around again and he looked down at the floor.

I frowned. "Look at me."

He hesitated, but eventually he looked up again.

"Why do you keep doing that? Looking down the second you look at me?"

He stayed looking down, shaking his head side to side slowly in shame.

"Oh, Bella…"

His voice ripped me apart. It was full of agony and grief…horrible feelings were reflected in his voice, and I was too weak to hear them without moaning at the pain it caused.

His head snapped back up to meet my eyes again and when my heart jumped around and my breathing became erratic, he did what he used to do; he told me to breathe and gave me his infamous crooked smile, only this time his crooked smile was mangled into a grimace and his face was writhed with pain again.

I sat up again, my vision blurring—

To hell with it. I was not passing out again, not now while I have him here. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, only opening my eyes when I was sure I was going to last long enough before he left again.

His face was right there, so close in front of mine. His eyes were, like I'd predicted, darker than they've ever been when he was with me, equally as beautiful as they were when they were gold. I knew he was torturing himself being so close. His throat moved as he swallowed the venom that I knew gushed into his mouth and burned his throat like if he was inhaling flames.

He took me lightly into his arms and hugged me, burrowing his face into the crook of my neck. I hugged back weakly, and he shuddered, muttering things like "I'm sorry" and "my fault".

I breathed his scent in deeply before pulling him back to study his face without letting him go.

"What are you sorry for?" I asked him gingerly, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

The agony in his face became worse, and I convulsed with pain, but I couldn't look away.

"Bella…before, in your house…when I touched you…" his voice came out half strangled, and then stopped, his brow creased with thought. "Before I touched my head to your hands, you were…well not perfectly fine, but you were okay. But the second—" his breath huffed out. "The second my skin made contact with yours, you stopped breathing. I don't even want to think about what'll happen if—"

"Edward, stop."

I wasn't exactly sure what my face looked like when he studied me. I knew my eyes were wide, and I knew my mouth was twisted into…something. But beyond that, I had no idea what he was seeing. But it didn't seem to make him happy. He didn't seem to be feeling anything but anguish.

"Don't apologize to me, Edward. You didn't do anything wrong." He opened his mouth to disagree with me, but I cut him off before he could start. "The only thing you did was come to see me. You were actually trying to ease some of the tension between us. I was the one who stopped eating. I was the one who wasn't taking care of myself."

I squared my shoulders and forced him to look at me. "I was the one who took a knife to my wrist and started this whole mess in the first place."

His eyes darkened horribly. They weren't even black anymore, they were just hollow pits. Dull and dripping with pain. His lips straightened into a taut line before he spoke, choosing his words carefully.

"That wouldn't have happened if I didn't leave in the first place." He said, his tone surprisingly even.

"And you wouldn't have left if you hadn't thought it would be better for me," I countered.

He didn't seem to hear it. He just sat there, his head hanging in disagreement and shame while he continued to mumble apologies to me.

Ah, the pain.

It tore at my chest to hear his voice when he was in so much pain. Like the gaping hole that was left there when he left was being charred at with nail files. Blaming himself for so many things had always picked at my insides, and had me moaning before.

I lost my breath for a moment again and clutched at my stomach. _God,_ it hurt.

"Edward, dammit, stop doing that!"

He looked up in alarm at my pain-stricken face. And once again he was about to stutter more apologies, but I cut him off again before he could.

"This isn't your fault. This was never your fault. I was an idiot, and I wasn't thinking at all when I started this mess, but it's already done with. I can't change what I did and even if I could I'm not sure I would." He was about to interrupt with another hateful comment towards himself, but I stopped him. "I don't mean that I would want to kill myself more than once. I only mean that if I hadn't, we wouldn't be here right now, and who knows where I would be right now."

He held me close again and sobbed tearlessly into my neck. I didn't know what to say; it hurt too much to think about what he was feeling.

The phone rang idly in the background.

**

* * *

A/N **– election day. Where my McCain supporter's at?? :D the next chapter's going to be with Charlie, and it's going to get more…dramatic? Whatever.

McCain '08, yoo!!!!!!!!!!!

Y'know, either way we're screwed; might as well be fucked less…a stick up America's ass rather than a small donkey.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** – Okay so here's the dealio: I wrote out the beginning, and some of the middle, but then I got into my DP x Twilight story (coming soon, check it out) and I stopped working on Three Months for a while. So here's hoping I didn't totally screw this up!

**Disclaimer** – I do not own Twilight, unless you count the battered paperbacks and pristine hardcovers that I have.

* * *

_Charlie POV_

Driving home had always been fun to me. The people in the cars around my cruiser always slowed down, the only downside, but it was hilarious watching the reactions going on inside the cars. Kids in the back seat buckled their seat belts quickly. Parents put down their breakfast and makeup and dropped their hands into the 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock position on the steering wheel, and all the while they'd be stealing glances out of the side of their eyes, making sure I wasn't looking. It was hard to control the smile that spread across my face most days.

But lately, and by lately I mean since December, the cars just don't humor me anymore; most of the time I'm too drunk to drive anyways.

It's not that I don't feel horrible about it, I just don't know what to do anymore. She turned into something that my sanity couldn't handle, and it escaladed to the point where I took a sip, took another, and never put the bottle down. The refrigerator and cupboards were now stocked with several types of alcoholic beverages.

It still shocks me. The knowledge that Bella was able to…well, it hasn't been easy.

I'm a horrible father. I should've been there; I should've helped before everything went wrong. I saw when it got worse, and I know I wouldn't have been of much help, but maybe I could've lessened the pain a bit. Maybe I could've done enough to make sure that she wouldn't get thoughts of suicide in her head—

_Ring, Ring._

My new cell phone went off mid thought. God, I hated this thing. Nurse Lannet was calling again. She probably forgot where the power button on the remote was again. How Nurse Lannet got a medical degree, I'll never know. But when a shrink you're paying hundreds of dollars to recommends her for help, you don't argue.

I flipped the phone open and put it to my ear. "Yes, Jennifer, what is it now?"

I couldn't comprehend what she was saying at first. Then after listening closely, she sounded like she was hyperventilating and she only managed to get a few words out.

I turned my sirens on as my foot pressed down on the pedal, bringing me up to sixty miles per hour. Heads turned in the surrounding cars.

"Nurse Lannet, what's wrong?" I asked brusquely.

"Bella's gone…Edward Cullen came earlier, and I stepped out, and now they're gone…" It was just incoherent babble after that.

I snapped the phone shut and pressed harder on the pedal, my impatience with the consequences of Bella's actions peaking as the cruiser reached eighty miles per hour. It was lucky I knew this town so well.

My course changed. Instead of going down the street, I made a quick u-turn at a corner and zoomed back the way I came, heading for the secluded turnoff to the Cullen Mansion.

Hate burned my eyes and turned my vision red. I've had enough.

That stupid nurse was going to be the first one to go.

* * *

_Bella POV_

The door slammed open.

Alice stood there, her eyebrows coming together in the middle, the corners of her mouth pulled down in a frown, and her nostrils flared. She was staring between me and Edward on the couch.

I cringed back into the cushions. She looked pretty angry.

Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie appeared seconds later, staring between us and Alice's small figure. She was breathing heavily, not as if she were tired, of course not, but as if she was so mad that, if it weren't for her control, the house wouldn't have survived her wrath.

"_Why_," she said seething, "haven't you been answering the phone?"

I couldn't help but smirk as Edward shrank closer to me.

"Edward Anthony Masen Cullen," he frowned at the use of his full name, "do you know what Charlie is doing right now?"

His frown turned into shock as he read her thoughts.

My face imitated his. "What? What's wrong with Charlie?"

Emmett voiced the question after I did. Alice and Edward ignored us.

"How much time is left?" Edward asked Alice as he got up from the couch.

She looked away, her eyes searching the future for—

Edward jumped up off the couch and had his cell phone by his ear before I realized he was gone from my arms, pacing across the floor.

"What's going on?" I asked nervously, and Emmett voiced the same again, only with impatience.

My eyes left Edward's face and searched for answers in the room. Rosalie, Jasper and Emmett were just as confused, only they were more frustrated and angered than nervous. Alice was busy staring into space, her gold eyes blank as she rummaged through the future, watching for something. Edward was pacing too quickly for me to even catch his attention.

"Carlisle," he said suddenly. After that it was completely incomprehensible, at least to me.

The other three vampires in the room changed their expressions from confused to…pity? Emmett looked kind of angry, Rosalie rolled her eyes, and Jasper remained impassive.

"Goddammit, if someone doesn't tell me what's going on, I'll go crazy," I said in general.

Edward hung up the phone and stopped his pacing, boring his eyes into mine.

"Charlie's on his way here," he told me.

I felt the little bit of color leave my face.

Edward winced, but continued. "He thinks you're in trouble, or hurt. Nurse Lannet got back to your house sooner than I'd anticipated, and she called Charlie when she read the note I wrote for you. She was hyperventilating on the phone, and Charlie assumed the worst."

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Not to get me to zombie mode, because that was impossible, but to calm me down. If Charlie came here and saw me in less than "perfect" condition, he'd go crazy on Edward. I wouldn't be able to watch that.

"What did the note say?" I asked slowly.

"I wrote that we went out for a moment to talk, that we'd be back soon, and not to worry. But I didn't expect her to be back for at least an hour."

My eyes opened, and I turned to Alice. "I'm not supposed to be anywhere without the nurse. What's going to happen to her?"

She looked distant. "I don't know. Charlie wants to get rid of her, but he's still deciding whether you're sane enough to manage without her and whether you two will be okay if she leaves. He knows you're doing better, but he's worrying about himself some as well…." She gave me a pointed look.

I winced and turned away from her. Edward gasped as she saw what I'm sure was playing through Alice's head: my dad drinking. Obsessively.

He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug, and I felt the tears well up in my eyes.

"I'm sorry," he muttered to me.

If he'd stop apologizing for things beyond his control, I think I would do a better job of controlling my tear ducts.

"He's here," Emmett said. Jasper and Rosalie followed his gaze when he turned to see the police cruiser pull up in front of the house and screech to a halt.

I heard a car door open and slam, and then footsteps stomping closer and closer to the mansion. Edward pulled me tighter.

"Charlie probably won't try to shoot me, but he's thinking about it," he muttered.

I clutched his hand.

Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett made way for my father as he stormed in through the doors.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here, Bella?" he almost hissed at me.

I stood up off the couch and scowled at him, but before I could say anything, Edward put himself between me and my dad. "It's my fault, Charlie. I took her out. Alice, as well as I, needed to speak to her about something private. And all of our cars were in use, so Alice asked if I would be able to escort her here—"

"Bella, you know you're not supposed to leave the house without Nurse Lannet."

My scowl deepened. "I am perfectly capable of handling myself. Hiring her made no difference to my actions. It only made my daily activities twice as hard. And either way, she left before I did."

Charlie frowned, and the anger never left his voice. "Bella, you know better than to let her leave."

"It's not _my_ job to watch _her_."

He didn't respond to me, but chose to yell at Edward.

"And _you_!" It was almost a hiss. "Who do you think you are, showing up at my house after all the problems you've caused?! I could almost kill you for what you did to her!"

Edward winced as if someone had slapped him in the face, and didn't react when I moved in front of him to fully face Charlie.

"Don't talk to him that way, Charlie," I said coldly. "He hasn't done anything."

"What do you mean 'he hasn't done anything'? Why do you think we're standing here?!"

The shouting match was really making my head hurt. My hands throbbed, and I wanted to hit something, so I smacked the couch so hard I was sure my hand turned bright red. I was mad, furious, and tears started to form again. I let them fall. I didn't care.

I felt a monologue coming on. "Oh God, Charlie, don't stand there and act like you know what's going on. You don't know anything about this, about why the _fuck _I was going to kill myself in the first place!" He winced at that. "Edward didn't do anything. He and his family left against their will. It was my idiot self that couldn't cope with it! You saw how I was for the first three months, and you knew how miserable I was, how lifeless. I was basically a zombie that walked around and did nothing but what she was told, and you saw almost every minute of it.

"He came back because he couldn't stand to be away, and he knew how much his leaving was going to affect me. I owe him my life, Charlie. If he hadn't come back, I'd probably be dead, and you'd be alone in that house drinking your _ass_ off every night like you do when Nurse Lannet leaves!"

Something broke in Charlie, and I immediately regretted the unforgivable words that came out of my mouth impulsively.

He whirled around and left, repeating the steps he took to come into the mansion in reverse: he stomped out, opened the cruiser door and then slammed it, and his tires screeched until he got them moving.

My eyes were wide, and my mind was racing. What did I just do?

I fell to my knees and broke down for the millionth time in too soon.

* * *

**A/N** – Ouch, that was hard. I told you more drama was coming—lots more. And I don't even think the drama has reached its peak yet, which is the excellent part. Sorry about the update being so delayed. I don't really have a better excuse than "I've been busy", so I just won't say anything :). And also, sorry about the length. I wanted to make it longer, but I kind of just ad-libbed most of this entire chapter.

Book recommendations! I WANT THEM! I need something to read. Right now I'm reading _Suck It Up_ by Brian Meehl, and I just finished _Maximum Ride: School's Out—Forever_, the second book in the series by James Patterson. I'm going to the library tomorrow to see if I can get the next Maximum Ride book, but I need something else. I fly through books like there's no tomorrow, so review me with any good books that you guys have read! :)

-skitzo


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N** – Last chapter :) More later

* * *

_Bella POV_

I stood still, watching the door, hoping to God that Charlie would come back and let me apologize. I don't know how long I stood there, but my chest was starting to hurt from the lack of breath.

Stone cold, gentle hands met my arms and a small voice was in my ear. "Bella, breathe."

I shook my head and continued to stare. He had to come back.

But I involuntarily shuddered in a much-needed breath, and with it, all the panic that had built up.

I broke free of Edward's arms just as Alice yelled "Edward!" and started running. Out the door, down the stairs, and to the road, trying to catch up with Charlie, though I knew in the back of my head that he was long gone.

There was a rock on the floor that I stepped on and my ankle twisted under me, but before I could fall Edward was there to catch me. Of course.

I felt a scream building up. "Edward, let me go!"

He pulled me towards the garage and let me go once the doors were closed, locking them. Then he let me go.

I walked right back to the door, and even know I knew it was locked, I jiggled the handle to try to escape.

"Let me out, Edward." There was an acid in my voice that he winced at.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

I huffed my breath out. "I want to go find Charlie!"

"I'll take you."

He walked to his car and opened the passenger door for me.

I weighed my options, seeing if I could make a run for it. A sense of déjà vu returned to me as I remembered blood typing day a million years ago.

I ran to the passenger door and sat inside, buckling myself in and waited, only when I turned to look over, he had already started to pull out of the driveway.

We got to Forks very quickly, fast enough that when I had pulled my eyes away from my hands and feet and looked out the window, we were already at my house. The driveway was empty, the lights off, and Edward's voice answered my suspicions.

"He's not here."

I sighed and got out of my seat, heading for the door. I heard Edward slam the car door behind me. He went ahead and unlocked the door or me, opening it and letting the dim light from the moon in.

I sighed and turned to Edward. His nose was turned up and he smelled the air.

"Nobody's been here since earlier."

Anyone could see that; the magazine Nurse Lannet left on the table was still open, the cushion on the chair in the living room on the floor from when Edward rushed me out. The phone was on the kitchen counter instead of on the receiver. Nothing had changed.

He'd have to come home eventually. I'd just have to wait it out.

With one last look at Edward for now, I walked up the stairs, and I felt his presence behind me. I went into my room, grabbed my shower bag, and then went to the bathroom.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth, but the warm water dripping down my chin felt really good, so eventually I stepped into the shower and let the hot water run down my back.

Errant thoughts ran through my head; I have a pile of homework to do; it can't possibly be midnight already; my room is a bit messy…nothing really of importance, luckily…just random thoughts.

But then too soon, the hot water ran out and I was cold again, and the real world behind the bathroom door was waiting for me.

I sighed and shut off the water, the overwhelming sense of the world on my shoulders almost bringing me to tears. But I bit them back. There was no use for them this time.

Once I was ready, I walked to my room, my feet dragging across the floor. Edward was on the bed, twiddling his fingers and staring at the floorboards.

He looked up almost immediately after I walked in and smiled slightly, and I couldn't help but smile back. The world seemed at ease for that one moment in time.

I turned off the light, walked to him, and curled into his chest while he wrapped a blanket around me to keep me from shivering from his cold body.

I let my thoughts wander again, pointless nothings drifting in and out, and I was on the verge of sleep when an almost silent sob shook me out of my stupor.

I blinked a couple of times before I realized that Edward was the one sobbing.

In a hurry, I turned around to face him, and his expression, I predicted, would haunt my nightmares for a long time.

I couldn't form the words, but the question was in my eyes.

He sighed, trying to clear the expression on his face.

"I wanted to ask you something," he said.

"So ask me." Only with the way he wasn't looking at my eyes but at my wrists, I figured I already knew what it was he wanted to ask me.

And then he said it. "Why'd you do it, Bella?"

My breathing staggered. How could I possibly answer his question without making things worse?

"Bella, _please_," he begged.

Tears hit my pillow. "You're going to hurt."

He pleaded with me one last time, and how could I resist? His voice was indescribable.

I sighed. "I did it because I couldn't bear having you away anymore," I answered. "Because I was too weak to stop myself…because you left."

His sobs were silent, but piercing, grating against the hole in my heart. Through the sobs, he muttered "why". I sighed again. "It's a long story…

"When you left…they found me after a couple of hours on the floor of the forest. I didn't react to anything. All I remember from that night was that there were fires, bonfires up on the reservation, celebrating the fact that you and your family had left. And then time passed. The celebrations stopped, and people moved on.

"Well, everyone except me, of course.

"Those first few weeks were agonizing…I try not to remember any of it. The doctor, though Charlie refused to let him see me, threw words around, mostly "catatonic". And he tried to get me to leave to go to Florida with Renée. That's when everything started to come into focus.

"I threw a huge fit. I couldn't leave…even if I knew you weren't coming back, how could I? Being here was the only thing I had left to make sure that you were real, that I hadn't been going delusional for the past half of the year. So they let me stay.

"I became the poster child for perfect children. Or I could've been if it weren't for the lack of feeling and emotion. I was a blank person. I did my homework, got the top grades, my chores were always finished early…but the person inside of me left with you."

I sighed, cringing when I remembered the first time. "I was in the kitchen with Charlie, making dinner. He was reading the newspaper, looking almost as much of a zombie as I did, and I was chopping peppers for a dish I can't remember. And I missed and sliced my finger open.

"The most beautiful thing happened then. I heard your voice. Not much of it, and it didn't last long, but it was there, and it was enough to make me jump and drop the knife, which was when Charlie looked up and help me clean my hand. It was a tiny accident, but it changed everything.

"It wasn't just your voice, though. What you said, or what I imagine you said, anyways, was what hit me. " I smiled bitterly. "You said 'Be Careful' and growled a bit when Charlie poured the rubbing alcohol on the cut

"I was entranced, thrilled with hearing you after such a long time. But the next day came and your voice faded away.

"Two days later, I tripped outside and scraped my hands on the pavement. Again, you 'spoke' to me. That time you huffed and said 'Bella' in that exasperated tone you have. I hadn't pieced things together yet, but eventually it became clear. You weren't there if I stepped on a thumbtack, or if I got a paper cut, or bit my tongue…but things like if I tripped down the stairs, or if a car got too close to mine on the highway. That's when I'd hear you. Your voice would come to me when I was in danger, or after I got hurt. It kind of made me hysterical, so I went looking for risky things, and eventually it led to the kitchen knife and me…at one in the morning. And your voice in my head, of course—"

"You…you did this just to hear my voice? Bella, how could—"

"No, not just to hear your voice. I needed to know that you weren't just a figment of my imagination. And then one day…it started to become too much. I knew I was mutilating my sanity every time I'd hear you and that day I snapped."

I sighed, wiped my face, and looked up into his eyes. "And now we're here."

I watched him as he stroked my hair, kissed my arms, my cheeks, my hands, but never my lips, and that was good. How much more could I take until he left? Just this was good enough.

He muttered apologies through his sobs and I didn't know how to respond. So I just listened to him, the holes in my heart grating open.

Time passed. I don't know how much, but it was a long time before he calmed down, which was a relief, because the last sob lifted the heavy weight off my chest.

At some point later, there was movement downstairs. I probably wouldn't have noticed, but Edward sat up and turned his face towards the door.

He frowned and looked at me sadly. "Charlie's home. I think he's going to need some help getting up the stairs…"

I flew out of bed and threw the door open. Charlie was holding on to the banister for dear life, trying to get up the stairs into bed.

Sighing, I went down to meet him, for once not giving him grief about his drinking, and threw his arm over my shoulder. He let me take the lead.

"I'm so sorry, Isabella," he said quietly.

I just nodded, looking at him as he turned his face up towards my door. Tears shone off his face from the moonlight from my open door, and prickles met my eyes. He didn't say a word when he saw Edward standing there.

"It's okay, Dad…"

I helped him through the door, out of his shoes and into bed.

He immediately laid down and went straight to sleep, looking almost peaceful.

Edward met me at the door, his hand held out waiting for me.

I turned back to look at Charlie one more time.

"I'm going to make things right."

Smiling, Edward took my hand, and we closed the door behind us.

* * *

**A/N – **FINALLY! AN ENDING! Oh man, I'm sooo sorry this took so long to get out! I had a thesis paper to do, midterms just passed, I'm failing my EMT class, my English class, and my US Govt class, and I'm out of excuses. It's been almost a year since I updated this. Wow. That's really bad -_- At least I'm done! There might be an epilogue if I'm ever dozing off in class and I find something productive to write about. But for now this is it! I hope you liked it! :)

-skitzo


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